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Adding a Text Track to a QuickTime Video

Q We want to add a text track to a QuickTime video for a four-title project we're starting. We're including videos in an activity-based educational CD for children. Part of our design is a sing-along to the video, and we want to include the text of the lyrics, which the user could turn on or off, as part of the video.

What is the best tool or method for adding (and tuning) a text track to a QuickTime 2.0 video? Are there any performance issues or other drawbacks associated with adding a text track? Can you suggest a good example of a product that has text in a video as a reference? How can I control where text is displayed on the video window? How can I control the font, color, and so on?

A You can use MoviePlayer to insert a text track into a video. Start with a text file, with each line in the file being a "frame" of the text video. Next, import it into MoviePlayer. This makes each line of the text file a printed line of text in a movie (it stores the text, not the bitmap, so it takes up very little space). Each frame of the movie is two seconds long. Then, edit the length of each "frame" to make it last the duration that the text is sung in the video, and add this text track to the actual video (like copying and pasting).

There are instructions in the QuickTime 2.0 SDK CD on how to do this in a document entitled, Guide to MoviePlayer. This also describes how to position the text on the screen.

Note that you must add the text with MoviePlayer on the Mac, not in Windows. To make it playable across the two platforms, you have to use "burnt text". This is also described in the SDK, and there are some movie samples on the CD that include "burnt text" -- 'Assimilation+Burnt Text' and 'Beverage+Burnt Text'.

There is another good article in issue 20 of develop entitled, Supporting Text Tracks in Your Application. The CD that accompanies develop also includes sample code that demonstrates this technology.

[May 01 1995]

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